Payment cards (hereinafter “cards” or “card”) are widely used by millions of people around the world to facilitate payments by electronic funds transfers. Payment cards may be a credit card, debit card, point card, multi-function device (MFD) card, near field communication (NFC) card, and so forth. A consumer may make a payment using his card to purchase a product or service from a merchant. In a typical case of purchase at a merchant's physical location as shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, the customer has to present his card at a point of sale (POS) terminal located at the merchant's place of business. The card is inserted or swiped through the POS terminal. Alternatively, the required card information may be entered or the POS terminal accepts near field communication contactless transactions and the card information is saved in the POS terminal. Once the card information is received and saved, the POS terminal transmits it to the acquirer for approval of the transaction along with the merchant information, such as a merchant code, and the transaction information, such as the payment amount and currency. The POS terminal transmits such information to the acquirer through the wired or wireless Internet or the standard telephone line. The acquirer communicates with the issuer as part of the approval process, where the issuer is the entity that issued the card to the consumer.
Here, an acquirer is usually a business entity such as a bank that has a pre-existing business relationship with a merchant. An issuer is usually a business entity such as a bank that issues a card to a consumer. The approval of the payment transaction or clearance and settlement thereof may involve communication between the acquirer and the issuer. The acquirer and/or issuer either approves or denies the payment transaction, and transfers such decision back to the POS terminal.
However, a customer's card information is transferred to a merchant's POS terminal and thus, there is a risk of the customer's card information being stolen. Additionally, if the merchant does not have a POS terminal or the POS terminal does not work, the customer cannot make a payment using his card.
Mobile devices such as a cellular phones, mobile phones, smart phones, tablet computing devices, personal digital assistants (PDAs), or the like, are becoming popular and being widely used as payment devices. The mobile device typically permits a device owner to make a payment for a merchant's goods or services. The mobile device may be linked to the device owner's payment account or the device owner's card information may be stored in the mobile device.
However, if the mobile device is stolen, the user of the mobile device may have access to the device owner's payment account or card information and be able to make payments without the device owner's approval.
A number of new payment systems have been introduced. Such systems typically utilize servers or management systems to manage the new payment transaction processes and databases. However, most systems drastically change existing payment transaction systems which makes it very expensive to implement and not practical.
Additionally, such systems do not provide a practical solution to customers and merchants desiring multiple methods of payment. For example, in recent years, cryptocurrency, in various forms such as Bitcoin, has emerged as a medium of exchange that provides a cryptographically secured decentralized alternative to traditional currencies and centralized electronic money. Cryptocurrency offers flexibility and privacy protection to users and may be implemented across a network of computing devices that maintains a digital ledger in the form of a block chain. Financial transactions using cryptocurrency may occur between a cryptocurrency wallet of a sender and a cryptocurrency wallet of a receiver. Such cryptocurrency wallets may store private and public keys that are necessary to authorize transfer of cryptocurrency.
Conventional payment systems and the new payment systems discussed above do not adequately provide for payment transactions using multiple payment methods such as cryptocurrency. Further, these systems do not provide for practical and easy-to-implement means for a customer to initiate payment and choose one or more forms of payment such as cryptocurrency, centralized currency, loyalty points, and the like.
Therefore, in order to overcome these disadvantages and shortcomings, there is a need for a system and method for a customer initiated payment transaction using a customer's mobile device that allows for multiple payment options to a customer. This invention is directed to address the above problems and satisfy a long-felt need.